Skills, Not Just Diplomas: World Bank urges action to close skills gaps

Countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia need to reform their education and training systems in order to provide the right skills demanded by labour markets, says a new World Bank report, Skills, Not Just Diplomas: Managing Education for Results in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, released on 25 October.

 

‘In spite of the large number of students completing upper secondary and tertiary education, surveys of around 10,000 firms in the region reveal that skills shortage is one of the most significant bottlenecks to business growth. This report addresses this paradox and the policies that can help meet the demands of constantly evolving labour markets.’ said Mamta Murthi, World Bank Director, Human Development Department, Europe and Central Asia.

 

According to World Bank report, three factors jeopardize the quality and relevance of education systems:

• too little focus on measuring skills—the ultimate outcomes of the education and training process.
• schools and local authorities often lack flexibility and freedom to respond to rapidly evolving needs and the local context due to still pervasive centralized management in many countries.
• countries have struggled to reorganize their school networks in the face of shrinking student cohorts, resulting in misallocation of scarce resources—for example in maintenance of nearly empty schools rather than in restoring the attractiveness of the teaching profession.

 

'Without adequate information on the skills students acquire and those adults actually have, policies to address skills gaps operate in the dark,' said Lars Sondergaard, Senior Education Specialist, and lead author of the report. 'We lack data on the skills of the working-age population.'

 

The Skills, Not Just Diplomas report analyzes the challenges and opportunities to prepare education and training systems to address this situation, building on cutting-edge policies and successful international experience.

 

One of the key recommendations is to focus more on the collecting evidence for better policies.

 

‘New surveys are needed to measure the skills of youth and the adult population, and assess what skills firms are looking for, says World Bank. With knowledge on what the gaps are, policies can be designed, for instance, to improve curriculum, teacher training, and career choice.

 

In 2012, the ETF is planning the second wave of its Torino Process, a review of the state of human capital development policies, with a special focus on vocational education and training, and business-education cooperation in 30 countries in the south and east of the European Union.

 

 

Year/Date: 27/10/2011

 

http://www.etf.europa.eu/web.nsf/(RSS)/63FFC6324B042D38C1257936004CB590?OpenDocument&LAN=EN